Beginnings & Celebrating Sukkot

Hello from Israel!

For a week and a half I have been situated on kibbutz Ein Dor, which is located in the Jezreel Valley, up in the north. The kibbutz, though privatized, is a fully functioning 700 person kibbutz, with its major industry being a cable and wire factory. My kvutzah (group) will be living on Ein Dor until mid-December, and have been starting to make a life here.

That life includes meals at the cheder ochel (dining hall), visits with one of the kibbutz's founders, and guest speakers from the movement.

In an effort to create a more cohesive picture for you, I'll provide the schedule of this week, starting on Sunday.

SUNDAY: Sunday morning (and most mornings actually), we wake up around 8 o'cock. After my whole kvutzah (group) makes a quick breakfast - usually hummus or nutella on toast and some fresh fruit - we start our lessons. when I say "lessons" I don't mean formal classes, I mean peulot, which are informally taught activities which convey certain lessons or values instead of facts. I wrote peulot every day for my campers this summer, and they're a pretty effective way to cultivate interesting conversations. On Sunday morning I have two peulot and with a short break before lunch, that is my whole morning. For lunch we eat in the cheder ochel (dining hall) with the rest of the kibbutz.

Anyways, after lunch, we have two hours of ulpan, which is a class almost everyone takes to learn hebrew. This is my only formal class, and I've tested into the highest level, so I have the opportunity to speak with other students that are knowledgable in hebrew. So far it is very interesting. Then, on Sunday nights we have a guest speaker, which is usually someone from within Habonim Dror or from the kibbutz (like Aryeh, a founder I spoke of earlier). Generally at nights during the week we either hang out singing songs, launch an impromptu dance party, or chat all together. Either way, it's relaxed and it's fun.

MONDAY: Monday is yom kvutzah (the day of my group). When we have a kvutzah day, it means we don't split up at all and instead spend the whole entire day together, having peulot (activities) and honest conversations about what's going on within our group. This week during our yom kvutzah we were given time to sit down with someone we knew less well in order to get to know them and discuss how we were feeling about the programming so far. It keeps us in check about how everyone is feeling regarding the program and in general. 

TUESDAY: On Tuesdays in the morning I do work in the kitchen for a few hours. It was only two hours this week and I chopped vegetables in the mitbach (kitchen). It's not like we do this work to actually be employed by the kibbutz, but rather it is a chance to get to know people in the community and get off our butts to do some work. Ideally i'd be working in the fields, but since the kibbutz has been privatized, they just hire Arabs from the neighboring town to work their fields (or just sub let them out). It's astounding how far the kibbutz has moved away from its original intent. After avodah (work) I have an hour or so to shower or nap, and then i'm off to lunch at the cheder ochel (dining hall). After lunch we have ulpan again for the two hours and then at night we have erev tarbut (cultural evening) where we do something fun which kind of teaches us random trivia about something important (this week our erev tarbut was about Sukkot which starts tonight).

WEDNESDAY: Today we had peulot (activities) in the morning which related to Sukkot and what we wanted to do for it. Following lunch, making good on our Sukkot promises, we built a Sukkah next to our moadon (club house) out of some scraps and metal that the kibbutz provided for us. Tonight we had a nice Sukkot meal that we cooked ourselves. Unfortunately we couldn't eat in the Sukkah because it doesn't have any light, but tomorrow morning we will be sure to bring breakfast to the Sukkah.

On sunday I am going on yam le'yam which literally means sea to sea. We are hiking for four days from the Mediterranean Sea to the Sea of Galilee. We will be going with other people from worldwide Habonim, including from Australia, the United Kingdom, and South Africa. I am extremely excited.

Time to go have a Sukkot party with the kvutzah! More to come later!